A new Fidelity College Savings Indicator found parents are on track to meet only 24 percent of their children’s total cost of college including room and board. Of the parents surveyed, the ones faring best are using 529 college savings plans– these parents should be able to pay half of their children’s college costs.

I don’t know about you, but I have no plans to foot the entire bill for Charlotte and Ted’s college. Like 8 of the 10 parents surveyed by Fidelity, I think my kids will appreciate college if they shared the responsibility for paying for it.

How much will I make them pay? I haven’t thought that far ahead. As it is, I’m one of the parents who haven’t started saving in a dedicated college savings account–and my oldes is now four years old! The horror!!!!

I’m not trying to discount the importance of saving for college, but I’m also not going to hitch a ride on the guilty train for not having money dedicated to paying for Psych 101 in the year 2022.

Nowhere in the press release was there mention of shifting day care costs to college savings as a child ages or tapping a retirement account such as a Roth IRA to handle college expenses.

What I’d really like to see is some advice on how to talk to grandparents or other relatives about college costs. Studies have shown that a growing group of grandparents are helping to cover education expenses. But it’s tough for the parent to plan education savings without a clear expectation of how much Grandma and Grandpa are going to contribute. I don’t know about you, but asking point blank about how much dough junior should expect sounds as unpleasant as having a sober discussion about funeral planning while munching on a Christmas ham.

What is your college savings philosophy? Are you already socking a large sum away because you want to pay for the entire experience? Do you wish you could save but can’t afford to? Have you had the talk with the in-laws about their tuition-paying promises?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under saving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.